Walnuts, anyone?

You are a Walnut Tree








You are strange and full of contrasts... the oddball of your group.
You are unrelenting and you have unlimited ambition.
Not always liked but always admired, you are more infamous than famous.
You are aggressive and spontaneous, and your reactions are often unexpected.
A jealous and passionate person, you are difficult in romantic relationships.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Random

Actually, to be honest, I have not yet pooped today. But I did poop yesterday. And the t-shirt makes me laugh. Blake and I disagree on the merits of the at-work doopie. Personally, I'm not a fan. If the need arises when I'm at work, so be it, but its definitely not a goal that I set for myself for the day.

I'm supposed to be productive for another hour and a half before the work week is through, but I'm afraid that I've already exceeded my quota for excellence for today. (Even without pooping!) I started a thrilling new spreadsheet yesterday with 1345 rows of data. I have currently analyzed up to row #93. Sigh.

I had a really hard time sleeping last night. I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. Well, until a few hours before I had to get up. At that point, the sandman unleashed his magical essence upon me with the fury of a hamsin. I picked up my journal and transferred some of the random thoughts running around my brain onto paper. There are a couple cool poems in the making in there, if I take the time to refine them.

This has been a strange week.
Monica was in town for a conference, and I got hang out with her several times. She and Blake and I shared a yummy dinner last night, followed by dark chocolate mint ice cream with oreo cookies smashed in. Yum! At Flat Top, you label little wooden paddles with your name so that you know which plate is yours when they bring it back to the table (because it always looks different after its cooked up.) Only un-cool people (like Blake) put their mother-given name on the label. I mean, come ON, its your chance to really push the boundaries! I went with the moniker "Awesome Mouse", which the waitress misread Awesome Moose. That U didn't look anything like an O, either. Monica offered that perhaps the waitress thought I misspelled mousse, like the chocolate dessert. But I think she just had a thing for moose.
A friend of mine, Marianne, is not doing well. She's in a bad place right now. She'll get through it, but its hard for me to see her hurting.

My birthday is in FOUR DAYS! Mom, Monica, myself and Mother Nature are off the hook, but if your name doesn't begin with an M, you'd better get to shoppin'.

I have to work tomorrow. Boo!

My new favourite outdoor supply company is Moosejaw. They rock.

I'm going to carve a jack-o-lantern after work tomorrow. I'm sure it will be super-cool.

Blogger spell-check doesn't recognize the words "poop", "Oreo", or "Yum".

I did, however, misspell the words misspell and grammatically. Stupid superfluous double letters!

Although I know that it is grammatically correct to place the comma inside the quotation marks when used as in two points above, I have never liked the way it looks. So I don't do it unless I'm being graded on grammar. Damn the man!

I mentioned Blake three times in this post. This is funny because Blake thinks blogging is dorky, and he doesn't like to be blogged about.

I think I'm going to leave work early. Shh... don't tell.

Growing Pains

As I reached the end of my youth, I realized that I have not only the power to shape myself into the woman I want to become, but also the responsibility.

At this time, I prayed to be loving. I don’t now remember why this, among all other qualities, was what I desired; but it was. It was a quality that I already saw in myself, and I wanted to own it more wholly. So I prayed to become more loving.
Almost overnight, every soul with whom I had contact irritated me to the core. I came to learn that to be a loving person, I had to show love to people with whom I least felt like interacting.

On the cusp of my adulthood, I began to pray for strength.
I saw this quality, and I desired it.
I don’t see myself as a strong woman. Others see me so sometimes, especially at work. I can put on a pretty good face. But at the end of the day, when I change into my jammies and wash off my make-up and my mask, I feel like a little girl at the feet of giants.
I received a compliment the a few weeks ago. Someone who doesn’t know me all that well, but in whose presence I have revealed myself, told me, “I think that you have a great deal of strength and you are much stronger than you realize.” That really filled me. It also made me think that being strong is only a step away from having strength. I feel like I have strength now, but to be strong I have to put that strength to the test.

Since praying for strength, I have taken the first few steps away from the earth, onto a wall that rises to the heavens. I have scaled merely feet of it, and already, every muscle in my body screams for repose. My heart especially convulses and quakes from exertion, and I wonder if it might break in two.
But in the deepest core of my being burns a fire of resolve. I draw on it for rekindling, and it tells me that, sometimes, to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least. It reminds me that, at the end of the day, what matters most is that I can lay my head down, and sigh, and feel happy. Tenacity stokes my exhaustion with willpower and determination, and it arouses my stubbornness.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.

Perhaps I am learning that every tear I shed opens room in my heart for the qualities I seek:
love,
strength,
and whatever I am foolish enough to pray for once I make it to the other side of that wall.

Talent is produced in solitude; character in the stream of life.
-Goethe

O, to be a Gardener!

Out of damp and gloomy days,

out of solitude,

out of loveless words directed at us,

conclusions grow up in us like fungus:

One morning they are there,

we know not how,

and they gaze upon us,

morose and grey.

Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener

but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Book Report

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

How poignant! His eyes watered every time he thought of it. He had it tucked in his bedroom drawer, but now he got it out and turned it over in his hands.

I finished this book over the weekend. I really enjoyed it. The author is Australian, and I really appreciated how his writing reflected a non-America-centric viewpoint. I also liked that the protagonist is a strong female. There are three main female characters, and when I finished the book, I found myself thinking about which character I was most like. I would like to think of myself as the strong, dedicated, f-the-rules--no-one-gets-in-my-way character. She was, however, very lonely. And she made a habit of disappointing some of the important people in her life. I think I would forfeit fortuitous strength if it meant being more emotionally and socially sound.

I really hope I am not the bitter, impulsive character who is convinced that everyone is out to cheat her out her due. This character developed throughout the storyline more than any other. She just became so... whiny/bitchy/convinced of her own superiority, so repulsive.

I suppose I am most like the character in the middle; the quiet, stable one. (Funny, I don't feel stable.) The one who sits on the sidelines and evaluates situations. The thinker. The change-your-own-little-corner-of-the-world-as-best-you-see-fit. I suppose, given the options, that I'm OK with that. I would like to become a little more strong and a little less meek, however. This character did end up with what she had wanted, but as sloppy seconds. I think this type of person spends (needless?) time waiting for what she wants to come around, instead of pushing harder or working more proactively to make it happen.

And that's all I have to say about that.